Allergies & Inflammation – Do you have the Signs?

Inflammation is a “hot topic” in medicine. It appears connected to almost every known chronic disease. ~Dr Mark Hyman

Happy Canada Day!

So what exactly is inflammation?

It’s how the body responds to outside threats. This may include things like stress, infection, injury or toxic chemicals.

Our body responds to injury by creating inflammation (as a protective mechanism). For example, if we hurt ourselves in some way it may be hot, swollen, red and we will have limited range of motion. The greek term for inflammation is ‘itis’. This is why we have illnesses labelled as arthritis, tendonitis, colitis, etc….

One thing we need to remember is that inflammation may also be silently present in our body. We may not even know it’s there. We need to learn to listen to our body because it will tell us whether we have inflammation.

Here are 10 signs and symptoms that indicate you have inflammation:

Allergies…no surprise here!

The classic “spare tire”

Fatigue or brain fog

Gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation

Bags under your eyes

Edema

Headaches, fever, chills, runny/stuffy nose – yes a cough/cold is a form of inflammation!

Gum disease

Joint or Muscle pain

Skin issues – eczema or psoriasis, acne, red/blotchy skin

There are also foods that cause inflammation in the body. Many of you may already be familiar with these:

Sugar

Vegetable-Oils – too many omega-6’s => inflammation

Fried Foods – they create trans fats

Refined White Flour, including pasta

Dairy

Artificial Sweeteners, additives and preservatives

Saturated Fats – mainly from factory farmed meat due to their diet and stress

Not to worry though…There are some foods and things you can do that actually fight inflammation. These include:

eating more vegetables

getting your omega 3s – wild fish, hemp, chia, flax

fermented foods like saurkraut, kimchi, kombucha

spices like garlic, ginger, curcumin, onions

pineapple – they have some good enzymes

throwing out the microwave

supplementing with probiotics, Vitamin D, proteolytic enzymes

drinking filtered, high pH water (8+)

NOTE: If you have a sensitivity to a food that you’re unaware of, instead of being ‘beneficial’ for you, it will create ‘stress’ and ‘inflammation’ instead!!

Also remember that all disease is due to inflammation AND ‘prolonged’ inflammation in your body leads to disease. Chronic inflammation has even been linked to cancer (Harvard 2014).